I haven’t played tennis since moving to Phoenix from Seattle and I miss it. So this past weekend I went to see John McEnroe, Jim Courier and Michael Chang play in Surprise at an event, the CTCA Championships.

It was cool. Here’s the story I wrote on John McEnroe and his appeal to the fans. As in why they like him. Please check it out, it has videos!

Sure, these guys are older. I watched McEnroe when I was a kid. But to see him up close and hear him speak about tennis and his other interests was a treat.

I figure I could have done other things on a Saturday night with no Oregon football game on. But I feel like I chose wisely in driving maybe two hours round trip to see tennis.

Anyone who knows me well knows I like to play tennis. Watching the sport, though, has always been kind of a drag. Until now perhaps.

Having looked out over Centre Court at the famous All England Lawn Tennis Club in person, I’m thinking I’ll be watching some more of it next month. I’m currently following the French Open with added interest, having seen Roland Garros’ main stadium court from high atop the Eiffel Tower.

I’ll write more about this next month, but Wimbledon was the sports highlight of the trip to England for me. It really wasn’t a planned place to visit — once my wife and I arrived in London it came to me later that day, that as long as we were here, we should go find it.

And we did. No competition going on but what a cool place, I’d say after the World Cup, the sporting event I’d like to see most would be a major match here.

CENTRE COURT!!!

I have seen this place many times on TV. I can remember Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras, Michael Chang, Mats Wilander, more Swedish guys, Jennifer Capriati, Yannick Noah, etc., etc….Read the rest of this entry »